Be careful for the crimson balloon: This text accommodates spoilers for “It: Welcome to Derry” season 1, episode 1, “The Pilot.”
“It: Welcome to Derry” is a Pennywise (Invoice Skarsgǻrd) origin story that is technically based mostly on Stephen King’s “It.” In follow, although, it is solely beholden to the tough historic timeline of the titular monster, as established in Andy Muschietti’s “It” movies and King’s novel. This leaves a lot for the present to play with and interpret because it pleases … and “The Pilot” proves that the present intends to just do that. How? By nearly casually killing practically each member of the present’s model of the Losers Membership.
After the episode has spent its early moments subjecting poor, doomed Matty (Miles Ekhardt) to the worst hitchhiking expertise possible, it spends appreciable time organising what appears to be the present’s model of the monster-fighting child crew from “It Chapter One.” The truth is, Lilly (Clara Stack), Teddy (Mikkal Karim-Fidler), Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), and tagalong little sister Suze (Hunter Storm Baker) get a lot consideration and characterization that it is easy to neglect It will not be defeated till the occasions of “It Chapter Two” … and subsequently goes to win this spherical it doesn’t matter what.
The episode units up the brand new child crew for therefore lengthy that when the demon child kind It used to kill Matty returns within the grand finale on the movie show, it is genuinely surprising. Much more surprising is the truth that It goes on to graphically slaughter Teddy, Phil, and Suze, leaving solely Lilly and younger projectionist Ronnie (Amanda Christine) for later. In a single fell swoop, “It: Welcome to Derry” establishes itself because the one King adaptation that has the chance to be really unpredictable — and it is nice.
Sadly, the unpredictability of Welcome to Derry is not constructed to final
“It: Welcome to Derry” season 1 takes place within the 12 months 1962. Due to this, a perceptive viewer who’s paid consideration to the historic bits of the Muschietti “It” films has a tough thought of some occasions which might be going down, in addition to It/Pennywise’s affect in the course of all of it. Nevertheless, the true magic of the present is that it options so many characters who’re conspicuously absent from the occasions that, for as soon as, a King aficionado can sit again and anticipate to be genuinely shocked with who lives and who dies.
The truth is, because it stands, solely two characters might be anticipated to be roughly secure. Blake Cameron James’ Will Hanlon is clearly main “It” character Mike Hanlon’s (Isaiah Mustafa and Chosen Jacobs) father, so until the present intends to mess with the canon in very sudden methods, he’ll probably survive into maturity. It additionally appears honest to suspect that the present’s main hyperlink to a unique Stephen King film – Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) of “The Shining” fame — will stay to make his technique to the Overlook Lodge. Aside from them, although? Everybody’s fates are gloriously up within the air.
By the way, this must be loved whereas it lasts. We discovered many issues about “It: Welcome to Derry” on the 2025 New York Comedian Con, and one in every of them is that every of the present’s deliberate three seasons will take the story 27 years additional into the previous. This may increasingly result in season 1 that includes some grownup characters who’re nonetheless children in season 2, which might make increasingly characters narratively secure because the story proceeds.
“It: Welcome to Derry” season 1 is streaming on HBO Max.